One of the co-founders of molecular gastronomy is Herve This, who has written a book called “Molecular Gastronomy.” It is a fascinating introduction to thinking about cooking in a scientific fashion. The book is composed of short chapters, each one detailing a new product or dish to be created. The chapters range from appetizers to entrees to desserts and drinks. One of my favorite chapters was on creating Chantilly Chocolate, a foamy chocolate dessert that is light and airy. It is made by combining chocolates and water, something not normally done since chocolate has a tendency to seize up, and whisking the mixture so that the ingredients are incorporated and assume the foamy texture. Reading this book offers a fascinating introduction to molecular gastronomy and will make you think about cooking in a very different way.

Once her internship ends, she moves to another restaurant, following her chef, who had opened a place with a partner. As she learns more about pastry and cooking, she decides to focus on pastry. Pastry chefs are a unique commodity in any restaurant because of the exceptionally high skill level and training required to create and reproduce desserts. They are different from regular cooks because of the level of precision required in making pastries. Cooks can be imprecise when making a dish, often measuring and seasoning to taste. Pastry chefs and bakers must be more careful, measuring every ingredient exactly and working the dough, pate, ganache, or crème for just the right amount of time. Otherwise, puff pastry doesn’t rise, ganache doesn’t set up and soufflés fall.

As Anthony Bourdain’s “Kitchen Confidential” exposed the world of restaurant kitchens, “Spiced” is a fun read, providing insight into the life and specialized training required of dessert chefs in professional kitchens.

Each section of the book is divided into Meditations, ranging from Gastronomy in General, defined as the intelligent knowledge of whatever concerns man’s nourishment, to Meditations on Food in General. Within each Meditation are more detailed discussions, including some of my favorites on sugar, coffee and chocolate.

One intriguing aspect of what he writes is its historical perspective. In the early 1800s, restaurants were just becoming commonplace, so several Meditations discuss these new establishments, including the novelties of their menus — which for the first time gave people the opportunity to select dishes for their meals from a variety of preparations.

So too, his comments about sugar are interesting, noting how widespread its use had become, albeit in such a relatively short period of time. “The use of sugar has daily become more widespread and more general, and there is not a single article of food which has undergone more changes and more combinations. People eat it in its pure state, mixed with water, made into syrup, sherbets, mixed with wine to make cordials … mixed with flour and eggs for the fairly new art of baking little cakes … mixed with coffee sugar accentuates the aroma. … The uses of sugar do not stop there, however. It can be said that it is the universal flavoring and ruins nothing.”

Brillat-Savarin was fastidious in his study of food, carefully re-creating recipes and processes to determine the best methods of preparation. Coffee received special scrutiny from both a historical perspective in where it originated and then how it was best prepared. “The beverage brewed from raw beans is truly insignificant; but roasting develops in them an aroma and forms an oil which characterizes coffee as we know it today, and which would have remained eternally unsuspected without the intervention of heat.” He relates the difference between grinding coffee with a mortar and pestle and with a coffee mill. Taking a pound of coffee, he separated the beans into two equal portions, grinding one with a mortar and pestle, the other with a coffee mill. “The unanimous opinion was that the beverage made from the pounded beans was obviously superior to that which came from the milled coffee.” I kept thinking how that might make for an interesting morning ritual at home and at coffee shops across the world, were everyone to adopt his advice!

Chocolate was another item that he carefully studied, and, to the delight of connoisseurs everywhere, he pronounced, “With time and experience it has been shown as proof positive that carefully prepared chocolate is as healthful a food as it is pleasant; that it is nourishing and easily digested; that it is above all helpful to people who must do a great deal of mental work. … People who habitually drink chocolate enjoy unvarying health, and are least attacked by a host of little illnesses which can destroy the true joy of living; their physical weight is almost stationary. … Americans make their chocolate without sugar … this appeals neither to our manners nor to our preferences, and here in France we like to have chocolate served to us all prepared.”

Two centuries later, it is refreshing to read Brillat-Savarin’s words and realize how little has changed in many of the foods we eat and the beverages we drink. This book reminds us of the timelessness and universality of the products we enjoy daily and is a necessary addition to the library of anyone interested in gastronomy and food.

Julia Child’s story is beautifully portrayed in her autobiography, “My Life in France,” and the background of her life with her husband, Paul, is also fascinating. They first met in Ceylon (Sri Lanka) during World War II when both worked for the Office of Strategic Services. They subsequently moved to Paris, where Julia’s passion for cooking was uncovered. Visits to restaurants, bakers, cheese makers, butchers, fish mongers, candy makers and chocolatiers followed as Child followed her passion and learned as much as she could about food and French cooking.

Julia Child is a culinary icon who was a driving force in creating the culinary and gastronomic culture that exists in the United States today. Her impact can’t be overstated. “Mastering the Art of French Cooking” helped spark a love affair with cooking that continues today. Her television show, “The French Chef,” introduced even more people to classical French techniques and helped make cooking accessible to everyone. The cookbook is enormous, more than 700 pages in the first volume, and took eight years to write and publish. One of the things I learned in her autobiography was that she possessed a remarkable dedication to the craft of cooking and a quest for perfection. Recipes were tested dozens and sometimes hundreds of times, with slight variations of ingredients and technique, so that every step was clearly understood and every recipe could be replicated at home.

The movie was fun to watch, but Julia Child’s autobiography is even more interesting to read for its portrayal of life in Paris, a life spent pursuing a passion for food, and how one woman helped transform and change America’s love for cooking.

I was recently invited to visit McDonald’s world headquarters in Oak Brook, Ill. It is a beautiful, verdant campus, where the main buildings are low brick-and-glass edifices reminding me of a Frank Lloyd Wrightdesign. While there, I was given a copy of “Grinding It Out,” Ray Kroc’s autobiography. The book is a fascinating recounting of how and why he was able to build the icon that is the world’s best-known brand.

By Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin

The title derives from the Balti tradition of drinking tea. The first time you share tea, you are a stranger. The second time, you are an honored guest. The third time, you become family, and for family the Balti are prepared to do anything, even die. It takes time to share three cups of tea; it means slowing down and building and treasuring relationships. 

The story is of Greg Mortenson, an accomplished mountain climber, who attempts to summit K2 in Pakistan. Becoming disoriented, he wanders away from his expedition and ends up in a remote mountain village where he regains his health. While there, he sees the children of the village scratching their lessons into the dirt with sticks because the village is too poor to afford a school or the $1-a-day salary for a teacher. Healthy again, and preparing to leave, he makes a promise to return to the village and build a school. 

He returns to the United States and tries to raise money by sending fundraising letters to hundreds of celebrities, with no success. Persevering, he sells his possessions and slowly begins collecting donations. He estimates that he needs $12,000 to build the school, then receives a check for that exact amount from a retired philanthropist who had heard of his mission. Mortenson returns to Pakistan to build the first school in Korphe, the village where he had been nursed back to health after his ordeal on K2.  

His belief is that education allows people, especially girls, to succeed in society. And promoting education furthers understanding and tolerance and helps promote peace in a tense world. It is a fascinating journey, underscoring the importance of education in every society. Even in the poorest villages, everyone pitches in and sacrifices to help build schools to educate the children, knowing that it is the path to their future success. One of the most moving stories in the book occurs when Haji Ali — the nurmadhar, or leader, of Korphe and Mortenson’s mentor — is forced to make a decision whether to allow the construction of the school to continue. The man who controls the Braldu valley where Korphe is located refused to allow construction to proceed until he received an extortion payment. Haji Ali gives him 12 rams, representing half the wealth of the village of Korphe. The villagers are shocked, but Haji Ali reassures them. “Long after all those rams are dead and eaten, this school will still stand,” he says. “Now, our children have education forever.”

As the remarkable story continues, Mortenson crisscrosses Pakistan and the United States, raising money for more schools. Dr. Greg, as he is called in Pakistan and Afghanistan, has now built 78 schools. The inspiring story underlines how someone with a dream can change lives with a lot of effort and a little bit of money. To learn more about the mission, go to www.threecupsoftea.com or to ikat.org, the Web site for the Central Asia Institute, the nonprofit that Mortenson runs. You can read more about the remarkable impact they are making in Pakistan and Afghanistan and can also make a donation. I was inspired after reading “Three Cups of Tea” to support their program and hope others will too.  

I heard author Keith McFarland speak at last year’s Inc. 500 conference, and he has a number of valuable insights as to what helps a company survive and thrive. (Funny how that conference creates such a reading list for me!)

This book is like “Good to Great” by Jim Collins, only focused on smaller companies. As McFarland says, the median size of the companies profiled in GTG is $32 billion, which most entrepreneurs who I know — hell, all of the ones I know! — will never see as revenue for their companies. So McFarland decided to focus on smaller companies, and he took the Inc 500 list as a starting point.

He takes an in-depth look at both highly successful and average small businesses to draw valuable conclusions. And while those conclusions are similar to those of Good to Great, the scale is somewhat different.

For example, one of the myths that McFarland shatters is that of the risk-taking entrepreneur. It isn’t that we entrepreneurs are so prone to risk taking. In fact he argues the opposite, that most successful entrepreneurs are fairly risk averse. However, what the successful entrepreneurs do is take a chance by betting big on a few huge chances. The trick is to focus and bet on a few big chances and not pursue every opportunity that comes along.

Do you have a business plan set for this year? I’ve already identified one of my big bets for 2009 — now we have to see if it will pay off.

Yunus, a former economics professor, maintains that everyone has an entrepreneur’s skills and abilities, and that unleashing those skills throughout the world can help end poverty by making people self-sufficient. One of the great restrictions these would-be entrepreneurs face, according to Yunus, is the access to enough capital to give their entrepreneurial efforts a boost.

Grameen Bank is the lending institution that Yunus founded in Bangladesh to provide funds in relatively small amounts – $20, $50, $80 – to give these women the opportunity to generate their own living.

Remarkably, by making the repayment terms weekly, and having the women (and later all loan recipients) work in groups, the repayment rate of these loans is over 99 percent. The profound impact the loans have on lives makes for inspiring stories, illustrating how each person has the ability to succeed at business if given the opportunity.

Yunus and Grameen Bank subsequently shared the Nobel Peace Prize in 2006 for efforts to create economic and social development from the bottom up. This is a remarkably inspiring book, and a work that makes one reconsider the priorities that we find so pressing every day. Really, in the greater scheme of things, often they are not that important.

The book illustrates the potential difficulties, hazards, and ultimate payoff of seeking, hunting, and bringing the whale back to the village. For the Inuit, a single whale represents food for a year. For a company, a whale-sized customer is one that is significantly larger than the hunting company; and its capture will help transform the service provider by elevating the smaller organization to another level in terms of revenue, process and thinking.

Authors Tom Searcy and Barbara Weaver Smith offer steps and a strategy for capturing those large accounts.

Mont Blanc Gourmet works with whales and has seen their transformative power firsthand. This book is an illuminating guide that neatly defines the entire process of trying to capture, and then work with, large customers.

I originally picked up “The House of Mondavi,” about Robert Mondavi’s iconic company, to learn how he revolutionized the wine industry in California.  But in the end, the book illustrated the rivalries and betrayals within the Mondavi family business and highlighted Mondavi’s smarts, charisma and character flaws that eventually were the company’s undoing.

Before Mondavi, California was mainly known for cheap jug wines. Mondavi founded his company in 1966 and brought to the U.S. varietal wines and superior wine-making techniques such as cold fermentation and the use of French oak barrels.

Mondavi’s story is a fascinating look at a family business that grew quickly and convinced millions of consumers to enjoy better wines than they had previously tasted. It is generally accepted that Mondavi was the catalyst behind the American movement toward the daily enjoyment of quality wine and food.

Mondavi was a brilliant, urbane salesman, but also a dysfunctional patriarch who refused to cede control of his company to his sons.  In the end, it is a very sad story. Mondavi’s sons were never able to step out of his shadow and run the company, which ultimately was sold.

The premise behind Mondavi’s lasting impact remains a critical pillar of successful business. Quality processes and techniques yield quality product. And good taste is something that can – and should – be enjoyed by everyone.  All of us in the specialty food industry owe a debt to Mondavi for helping educate people about the great potential of our unique products.  I raise my cup of coffee in tribute to Robert Mondavi.